Many farmers fence their pastures with either barbed wire or a smooth, non-barbed electric wire. Generally, many farming operations use single, double or triple strands of wire to delineate the perimeter of their pastures. The wire is usually tacked to a fence post. Fence wire which is to receive an electric current, i.e., "hot wire," is usually secured to an insulator which is tacked to a wooden fence post. Alternatively, specialty electric fence posts having insulative portions are also used.
In many instances, cattle and other animals injure themselves by inadvertently becoming entangled in the fence wire due to their inability to visually identify the presence of the wire against the natural background of the outdoors. In extreme instances, calves and cattle, once entangled, strangle and suffocate in an effort to free themselves.
The effort required to treat and nurse animal injuries is time consuming and expensive. In many instances the cattle must be separated from the herd until medical assistance can be provided. Moreover, the time consumed in nursing and ministering to injured animals detracts from the farmers or ranchers ability to complete other tasks. This is especially critical when one considers that certain tasks must be performed at defined times. Moreover, the energy required to heal a wound detracts from an animal's ability to develop properly, produce milk or to add weight.
In an effort to alert cattle and other animals to the presence of fence wires, farmers and ranchers have tied ribbons or flags to the fence wires at predetermined intervals to promote easy fence identification. The flags are usually ribbon shaped so that they flutter significantly under slight breezes or contact with other stimuli when they are secured to the wires.
Clamps have long been used to secure the items, i.e. ribbons, clothes, etc., to wires stretched between two points. One such clamp is the common clothes pin and other like devices which define a converging gap. In use, a portion of a ribbon is folded over the wire. The converging gap of the pin is placed over the wire and the ribbon to be supported by the wire. The pin is then pressed onto the wire until a friction fit between the pin, wire and the material is realized. Over time, environmental factors, i.e. wind, rain, loosens the fit of the pin thereby allowing the pin and the ribbon to move along and/or fall off the wire. Spring biased pins have also been utilized. However, such pins lack sufficient force to securely position a pin on a wire for extended periods of time. Moreover, the expense of deploying a variable number of pins around the perimeter of a pasture is excessive due to the manufacturing and assembly costs associated with multiple part spring biased pins.
Tying rags or ribbons to fence wire is also known. However, tying material to the wires limits the size, shape and nature of the flags which can be used. Tying generally requires flags which are narrow and flexible, thereby increasing the number of flags required to adequately identify a fence wire. Additionally, narrow, ribbon-like flags tend to wrap around the fence wire shortly after deployment, thereby minimizing their effectiveness.
Unfortunately, tying or clipping the flags to fence wires using conventional apparatus either limits flag fluctuation and/or does not securely position the flag on the wire. Under normal conditions, the force of wind, snow and driving rain upon a flag slides the flags and clamps along the wires until the fence post acts as a stop. In many instances, the flags remain correctly positioned only for a few days or weeks. Thereafter, the flags must be repositioned on the wire, another time consuming activity which detracts from the farmers' or ranchers' ability to attend to more critical tasks.